1. Technical Field/Field of the Invention
The present invention is a dongle connected to the audio/earpiece jack/port of cellphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, laptops, netbooks, and other networked devices (host devices) which allows them to read the card data from credit card, debit card, charge card, etc for secure payment card transactions as point of sale (POS) card terminals. The dongle contains no battery. It is powered by the sound wave playing continuously from cellphones, personal digital assistant (PDA), smartphones, laptops, netbooks, and other networked devices.
2. Background Art
Credit cards, debit cards, charge cards, etc. are all popular payment methods for conducting day-to-day financial transactions. These payment cards are usually used in conjunction with POS card terminals which contain magnetic stripe card, smart card, and/or proximity card readers. The majority of these card terminals are connected to their merchant account providers—the hubs for electronic funds transfers—through wired telephone and internet connections. Terminals do exist which provide wireless functionality through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and various cellular networks (e.g. GSM, CDMA, etc.); however, they are expensive and often require the user to purchase a wireless connectivity plan specifically for the device. Also, even wired card terminals are not cheap.
Most people already own some kind of device connected to the Internet or a telephone network, however, such as a cellphone, personal digital assistant (PDA), smartphone, laptop, netbook, etc. When most people wishing to operate a POS card terminal, be it wired or wireless, already own the majority of the hardware necessary for conducting payment card transactions, purchasing attachments which provide terminal capability to their existing devices may be more cost-effective than purchasing new, dedicated card terminals. In addition, it is often redundant for wireless card terminal operators, usually small merchants without permanent shop fronts, to purchase terminals with dedicated connectivity plans, as they already own a device—or multiple devices—with cellular or internet wireless connectivity.
Cellphones, PDAs, smartphones, laptops, netbooks, and other networked devices contain a variety of different hardware ports, however. Often, hardware connectivity options common for one type of device will not be common for another type of device. For example, while the majority of laptops and netbooks contain one or several USB-A connectors, cellphones and smartphones usually lack a USB-A port. In the present art, while POS terminal dongles do exist for some networked devices, the hardware connectivity methods they utilize limit the number of devices they can support. For example, card terminal dongles which connect via Apple's 30-pin dock connector for iPhones, iPods, and iPads cannot be used by the large number of devices which do not contain this port. Many devices are currently unsupported by the present art's card terminal dongle options.
Furthermore, some of the external ports are designed for data communication. They do not provide power source for a device connected to the port. In this case, the dongle must have internal battery for operation.